Web logIT-guide dr. Jonestag:dr.jones.dk/blog,enIT-guide dr. Jonesikiwiki2013-05-25T19:49:24ZFreedomBox - Helps You Stay Free!http://dr.jones.dk//fb/linuxtag/2013-05-25T19:49:24Z2013-05-24T22:00:00Z
<p>On saturday 25. of May I gave a talk about FreedomBox
at the "Claim back your device" track of LinuxTag in Berlin.</p>
<p>LinuxTag is a fairly big annual conference
about (yes, you guessed right) Linux and related topics.</p>
<p>The FreedomBox is a project to help non-geeks care about their
personal privacy when online, same ways as geeks have practiced for a
decade or more. Concrete goal is to design a small, cheap physical box
similar to an internet gateway or wifi router
but with three additions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Easy and intuitive to setup and personalize for non-geeks</li>
<li>Offers routines to help you protect your privacy</li>
<li>Offers routines to let you help others in need of privacy</li>
</ul>
<p>"Privacy" is commonly mistaken as "secrecy":
Privacy is to keep you in control of your information,
so that sharing or keeping to yourself is truly your own choice.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot especially to Matthias Kirschner for inviting me as a speaker!</p>
<p><a href="http://dr.jones.dk/fb/talk/linuxtag">Slides</a> (<a href="http://source.jones.dk/?p=jones/content.git;a=blob;f=fb/talk/linuxtag.mkd">sources</a>) for the event.</p>
Debian Pure Blends - Creating sustainable hackshttp://dr.jones.dk//blends/paris/2013-04-03T22:48:00Z2013-04-03T22:00:00Z
<p>Today Thursday April 4th I give a talk at <a href="https://distro-recipes.org/en/">Distro-recipes</a> in Paris
about <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DebianPureBlends" title="Debian Pure Blends">Debian Pure Blends</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://dr.jones.dk/blends/talk/paris">Slides</a> and <a href="http://source.jones.dk/?p=jones/content.git;a=blob;f=blends/talk/paris.mkd">sources</a> for them.</p>
FreedomBox - scratching someone elses itchhttp://dr.jones.dk//fb/fscons/2013-03-18T15:16:35Z2012-11-10T23:00:00Z
<p>Today Sunday November 11th I give a talk at FSCONS in Gothenburg about
FreedomBox.</p>
<p>FSCONS is an annual scandinavian hacker conference, with a very friendly
attitude and atmosphere.</p>
<p>The FreedomBox is a project to help non-geeks care about their personal
privacy when online, same ways as geeks have practiced for more than a
decade.</p>
<p>The project is exciting in that is frames a common dream among lots of
hackers and therefore sparks new innovation and renewed commitment.</p>
<p>The goal is frustrating to tackle, because us hackers most often solve
problems close to ourselves (a.k.a. is driven by "an itch to scratch"),
and only very few of us are interface designers, which are crucially
needed to make things usable for non-geeks.</p>
<p><a href="http://dr.jones.dk/fb/talk/fscons">Slides</a> and <a href="http://source.jones.dk/?p=jones/content.git;a=blob;f=fb/talk/fscons.mkd">sources</a> for them.</p>
What is FreedomBox? And when can I have one?http://dr.jones.dk//fb/epfsug2/2013-03-21T17:14:20Z2012-11-08T23:00:00Z
<p>On wednesday 7. of November I gave a talk at EPFSUG in Brussels about
FreedomBox.</p>
<p>EPFSUG is an interest group of Free Software users working inside the
European Parliament.</p>
<p>The FreedomBox is a project to help non-geeks care about their
personal privacy when online, same ways as geeks have practiced for a
decade or more.</p>
<p>The goal is a small, cheap physical box looking like and operating like
an internet gateway or wifi router many are accustomed to nowadays - but
with three additions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Easy and intuitive to setup and personalize for non-geeks</li>
<li>Offers routines to help you protect your privacy</li>
<li>Offers routines to let you help others in need of privacy</li>
</ul>
<p>"Privacy" is commonly mistaken as "secrecy": Privacy is to keep you in
control of your information - you can then use that control to keep
secrets from others or to share with others as you like.</p>
<p>Talking about personal privacy in the European Parliament
can seem a bit of a stretch.
It is not a home but a (huge) office space,
where it is perhaps less obvious
that you should treat some information as personal,
or that you are even allowed to do so.</p>
<p>Try watch the <a href="http://media.biks.dk/fb/epfsug2/">videos</a>, and if you have questions then please don't
hesitate to get in touch with me about them.</p>
<p>At the EPFSUG meeting was also a presentation by an emplyee who had
succesfully installed and used Free Software at the internal network of
the Parliament, but then later told that it wasn't allowed - because the
IT staff need to be in control of your computer activities at the place!</p>
<p>The head of IT services at the Parliament attended the meeting and
gave a short improvised talk at the end, expressing positive interest
in behalf of the established IT services at the place towards our grassroots
activities - and even praising explicitly EPFSUG as being the ideal
place for all EU citizens to ask questions about Free Software in
relation to the European Parliament. See for yourself in the video of
Giancarlo!</p>
<p>Thanks a lot especially to Erik Josefsson for making this event reality!</p>
<p><a href="http://dr.jones.dk/fb/talk/epfsug2">Slides</a>, <a href="http://source.jones.dk/?p=jones/content.git;a=blob;f=fb/talk/epfsug2.mkd">sources</a> and <a href="http://media.biks.dk/fb/epfsug2/">videos</a> from the event.</p>
How I (don't) use Facebook imageshttp://dr.jones.dk//img/facebook/2012-10-21T16:32:47Z2012-10-20T22:00:00Z
<p>Dear Facebook friend,</p>
<p>I like you and I am happy that you take/tag/share photos of me, just not
on Facebook!</p>
<p>I have a Facebook account but <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../msg/facebook/">don't hang out there</a>.</p>
<p>Please share your photos in public, not (only) inside Facebook. And
please consider allowing Free reuse of your photos, by licensing them
with a Free license like <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0" title="Creative Commons - Attribution-ShareAlike">CC-BY-SA</a> or <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/" title="Creative Commons - Public Domain Dedication">CC0</a>.</p>
<h2 id="herenow">Here &amp; Now</h2>
<p>My suggestion for now is to use Flickr, and license all images as
"Attribution, share alike".</p>
<h2 id="theperfectway">The Perfect Way</h2>
<p>Ideally you would publish the photos on some server that you control,
like the <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../fb/">Freedombox</a>, but those are unfortunately not yet easy to
find or use.</p>
<h2 id="whynotfacebook">Why not Facebook?</h2>
<p>Facebook is a closed system: all activities happen at one central place.</p>
<p>Maybe you don't care who is spying on the photo gallery that you share.
That's fine - but please respect those of your friends who do care, by
putting a copy of your photos somewhere with less thirdparty control.</p>
<p>Regards, Jonas</p>
Blended configurationhttp://dr.jones.dk//blends/config/2012-10-18T06:11:19Z2012-10-02T22:00:00Z
<p>I want all my computing environments "furnished" similarly and as close
to my personal taste as possible - be it big and small machines,
self-administered and user accounts of others.</p>
<p>&#8230;and not only for myself - similar is needed for the environments I
help maintain for my friends <a href="http://sirireiter.dk/" title="Siri Reiter - my girlfriend and closest colleague">Siri</a>, <a href="http://www.erikjosefsson.eu/" title="Erik Josefsson - fellow Freedom fighter at the European Parliament">Erik</a> and <a href="http://niebieskirekin.com/om.htm" title="Peter Haselmann - bold and grounded movie and TV producer">Peter</a>.</p>
<p>The environments are seldom fully equal, so simply copying things around
is rarely useful.</p>
<p>Here's a checklist of things that I need to customize and syncronize for
me and my friends to feel at $HOME&#8230;:</p>
<ul>
<li>System-wide
<ul>
<li>Tools available on the system</li>
<li>Graphical login and Desktop environments</li>
<li>Adjust fonts, colors etc. of terminal emulator, file manager etc.</li>
<li>Register SSH in monkeysphere, MAC in DHCP and hostname in DNS</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Account
<ul>
<li>Syncronize browser bookmarks</li>
<li>Install/configure browser search plugins, config tweaks etc.</li>
<li>Setup email and messaging accounts, and syncronize archives</li>
<li>Syncronize development scripts, git repositories etc.</li>
<li>Register account in monkeysphere</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>
<p>Above is work-in-progress. I hope to later extend with more details -
probably by linking to separate pages about each subtopic.</p>
How I (don't) use Facebookhttp://dr.jones.dk//msg/facebook/2012-10-01T13:44:41Z2012-09-30T22:00:00Z
<p>Dear Facebook friend,</p>
<p>I like you and I want to chat with you, just not on Facebook!</p>
<p>My Facebook account is there to reach you where you are, but I do not
hang out there. Please join me at Free and Open spaces instead - via
email, IRC or Jabber&#8230;</p>
<h2 id="goodoldemail">Good old email</h2>
<p>If you cannot be bothered with change, then simply email me!</p>
<p>My email address is <a href="&#x6D;&#x61;&#x69;&#108;&#x74;&#x6F;:&#x64;&#x72;&#64;&#106;&#111;&#110;&#x65;&#x73;&#x2E;&#x64;k">&#x64;&#x72;&#64;&#106;&#111;&#110;&#x65;&#x73;&#x2E;&#x64;k</a> like always <img src="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /></p>
<h2 id="simplewebchat">Simple webchat</h2>
<p>If you are in a hurry and do not use Jabber yet, then try use my
<a href="https://chat.jones.dk/">Simple Groupchat</a>.</p>
<p>Use guest login if you are not a user at jones.dk.</p>
<h2 id="properjabber">Proper Jabber</h2>
<p>Jabber is similar to email: You need 1) an account somewhere, 2) some
client application setup to use that account, and 3) the address of
those you want to connect.</p>
<ol>
<li>Register an account at e.g. Indonesian http://jabin.org/ or
<a href="http://list.jabber.at/">some</a>
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_Jabber_Servers">other</a>
<a href="http://xmpp.net/">server</a>.</li>
<li>Install a Jabber client program&#8230;:
<ul>
<li>on Windows try install Gajim from <a href="http://gajim.org/">http://gajim.org/</a>.</li>
<li>on smartphone try app from <a href="https://imo.im/">https://imo.im/</a>.</li>
<li>on Ubuntu try use the Me menu in top right corner.</li>
<li>on Debian try install Pidgin: aptitude install pidgin.</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Invite me as your friend/buddy: my Jabber ID is jonas@jones.dk</li>
<li>Tell your friends to do the same! <img src="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../smileys/biggrin.png" alt=":-D" /></li>
</ol>
<h2 id="geekyirc">Geeky IRC</h2>
<p>Many computer geeks hang out on IRC. I find it ugly and clumsy to use,
but most of my techie friends are there, so I recommend going there to
discuss technical matters.</p>
<p>On <a href="http://www.oftc.net/oftc/">OFTC</a> my nickname is jonas, and I often
hang out at the chatroom #debian-devel (plus a few others).</p>
<h2 id="whynotfacebook">Why not Facebook?</h2>
<p>Facebook is a closed system: all activities happen at one central place.</p>
<p>Email, Jabber and IRC are open protocols, exchanging between many Free
systems (and some non-free ones as well).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Imagine having an overprotecting mother, who allow you only to meet
your friends at one spot in town - where she can look after you.</p>
<p>You maybe have no secrets from your mom, but probably still appreciate
the <em>option</em> of being alone - to have some privacy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Facebook is that one spot in town. Jabber is "let's go meet somewhere".</p>
<p>Regards, Jonas</p>
Asia 2011 - Khammamhttp://dr.jones.dk//blends/asia2011/khammam/2012-09-07T14:58:13Z2011-10-18T22:00:00Z
<p>My first morning in India I woke up very late
in <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?way=61899027" title="House of Pavithrans parents on OpenStreetMap">the house of Pavithrans parents</a>.
Pavithran was out organizing events for us, his father was at work,
leaving me with his mother. She spoke little english - unsure if it was
lack of skills or she was humble, or perhaps she just felt as shy as me
in the situation.</p>
<p>How to, ahem, do your thing at a restroom when there is no toilet paper
but instead a bucket of water? I decided to not yell
for help but use my imagination.</p>
<p>How to eat breakfast local style? I knew from dinner previous night
with Pavithran that local custom was to eat with my hands and that it
(lucky for me) was tolerated in India to use left hand, so turned down
the kind offer for a spoon.
But were I supposed to mix rice with all the curries? Or one at a time?
In which order? What if a curry was too hot to dip my fingers into?
Was the liquid stuff to drink or to mix with the rice or eat afterwards?</p>
<p>I asked for help, and first she just smiled at my alien useless language
and then when I persisted, she patiently demonstrated with her hands in
my food how to do. The only natural thing to do, really, and I dearly
appreciate her help and patiency. But wauw, it was mind-blowing to me!
Since early childhood, fingers in food is a forbidden thing:
"Don't play with the food!". On top of that, having someone else
handle my dish while at the table is something I associate with being
very old and needing to be spoon-fed.</p>
<p>In the afternoon we went for a small hike to an old stone fortress in
the middle of Khammam - with a great view of the sun setting.</p>
<p>Next day we went to Sarada Institute of Technology &amp; Science where I
gave my first <a href="http://dr.jones.dk/blends/talk/khammam/" title="Talk slides: Debian Pure Blends">talk</a> to about 100 students. I had intended to provide
concrete facts on Debian generally and on my pet project,
Debian Pure Blends, but then the night before decided to radically
shift focus to their situation in the early twenties - as best as I
could imagine it. Pavithran had clearly expected a different style
talk, but I liked it and believe it was received well by the
audience as well.</p>
<p>The teacher responsible for the event, Bhukya Jabber, afterwards
asked for hints on running Debian at their computer lab. I suggested
to not lock down access but instead make it easy to reinstall, and
he explained how he was quite interested in a larger degree of
learning-by-doing (which I had also promoted in my talk)
but was constrained by curriculum dictated
higher up in the educational system.</p>
<p>Late that day Pavithrans father introduced me to <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/?node=630425208" title="CPM Khammam on OpenStreetMap">CPM Khammam</a>
- the local offices and community center of the <a href="http://cpim.org/">Communist Party</a>
- and to a colleague of his at the place, N. N. Rao.
I instantly fell in love with the place and its atmosphere,
and now have an open invitation to come back
to spend 1-2 months to study and to collaborate with other
users of the place (including some kids hosted there) on Free Software.</p>
<p>Next morning we headed back by train to Hyderabad&#8230;</p>
<p>I am still amazed how radical it feels sticking my fingers into food.
Not the physical feeling (I am not <em>that</em> disconnected from my body) but
similar to a discovery I had as a teenager: After 7 years of
piano lessons (and numerous other instruments less patiently) I gave up
because I felt it was too difficult expressing personality through the
instrument. After that I exclusively sang - as I had always done, but
only now did I recognize my voice as a serious musical instrument.
Similarly I now realized that eating with the fingers is not just
yet another eating style like fork+knife or sticks -
it is the <em>natural</em> one. Obviously, in hinsight.</p>
<p>This text is part of my <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/">Asia 2011</a> scriblings.</p>
Asia 2011 - Indiahttp://dr.jones.dk//blends/asia2011/india/2011-11-21T17:01:56Z2011-10-17T22:00:00Z
<p>Arrival in a new country is always exciting. <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/">This</a> was my first time
ever to visit India, and although I have heard especially cultural
bits and pieces, I was as usual nowhere near "well" prepared.</p>
<p>How to fill out the registration forms (surprisingly needed in
addition to the visa already gathered ahead of departure)
when your only known address in India is on the laptop you completely
drained the battery of during the flight? Luckily they tolerated the
"address during stay" to be left blank.</p>
<p>I got out in the heat of Hyderabad in the late afternoon, got a cab,
and had my host instruct the cab driver
- over the phone via roaming to Denmark - where to drop me off.
After a long ride with cows and beautiful dressed pedestrians
casually crossing the high speed road
and a short pitstop at an ATM, I finally met Pavithran.
Until then we only knew each other from casual online chat.</p>
<p>(I should later learn that my first impression was quite unusual
- not cows or clothes or chat, but roads capable of driving at high speed!)</p>
<p>Pavithran checked me into a small hotel and we visited his home.
It was in the middle of being rebuild, so impossible to stay at
as had been our original planed.</p>
<p>After a few hours of looking at the neighbourhood and talking about
possible events during the week, we decided to cancel the hotel
and instead go <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/khammam/">visit his parents in Khammam</a>,
some 5 hours away by bus&#8230;</p>
<p>This text is part of my <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/">Asia 2011</a> scriblings.</p>
Asia 2011 - Londonhttp://dr.jones.dk//blends/asia2011/london/2011-11-10T12:41:03Z2011-10-16T22:00:00Z
<p>First event of my trip was somewhat a gimmick:
Give a 30 minutes talk on FreedomBox to an audience of 1 person,
in the transit area of Heathrow airport, London.</p>
<p>A guy from India now living in London helped preparing my visit to India,
an was eager to participate - so much that he was willing to drive
out to the airport to meet me.</p>
<p>The meeting failed, unfortunately:
My flight got delayed, and my one-man "audience" got caught in other duties. <img src="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../smileys/sad.png" alt=":-(" /></p>
<p>Fun to try nevertheless. Also looking back, that crazy attempt
to squeeze in a meeting during a 1 hour stop-over
was an indicator of the general pace of the <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/india/">India</a> trip&#8230;</p>
<p>This text is part of my <a href="http://dr.jones.dk//blog/../blends/asia2011/">Asia 2011</a> scriblings.</p>